Hollow Victories
by ScribeOfRhapsody
Summary: In the end… Rem decided it was better for Misa to live in the heartbreak of loss than the heartbreak of being used and disposed of by one who'd never truly cared for her. Letting Misa carry on this way until she was found out and executed was not an option. Light Yagami had to die.


**Because I showed my mom Death Note and got back into it. lol**

 **I always had this "what if Rem was tired of taking Light's crap" idea in mind, so I decided to finally write it out.**

* * *

If Light Yagami lived, Misa would suffer.

If Light Yagami died, Misa would suffer.

But in the end… Rem decided it was better for her to live in the heartbreak of loss than the heartbreak of being used and disposed of by one who'd never truly cared for her.

Letting Misa carry on this way until she was found out and executed was not an option.

Light Yagami had to die.

* * *

Every breath he took was planned. Every expression he made was calculated. Every word out of his mouth was precise and for a purpose.

Everything had gone perfectly according to plan. No slip-ups. No unforeseen variables. He was on the brink of victory. His new world was within his grasp.

"But still, to sacrifice a life–"

His perfectly constructed act only needed to last a little bit longer. One blink at the wrong time and L might see straight through everything he'd built.

"We are very close! If we work this out, the entire case will be solved!"

But no, that wouldn't happen. L had nothing on him at this stage, and Light wouldn't be making any mistakes.

And then he gasped. An unplanned reaction – _impossible!_ But it _had_ happened. He couldn't _stop_ it from happening as pain burst through the left side of his chest, radiating outwards like something had crushed his insides.

 _This couldn't be._

" _Light?_ "

He was falling. No… he _had_ fallen. He'd been caught. Matsuda was clinging to his shoulders, saying… something…

But none of that mattered. He was dying. He was dying, and that couldn't be stopped.

Damn that Shinigami! He's pushed her too far – she hadn't played into his plans like she should have! What the hell was she thinking? She'd wanted Misa to be _happy_.

"Light, no! Look at me, son!"

He couldn't breath. There was no point in breathing. His heart had already stopped. Seconds were all he had left.

Too close. everything was to close – his unmoving chest, the faces around him…

L…

It wasn't just Light's father and Mutsuda and the others hovering above him – L was there too, crouched at Light's side, his expression twisted by a multitude of emotions Light had never seen him express so clearly.

Shock, confusion, concern, disbelief…

Light would have laughed if his lungs didn't feel tightened to the point of choking him themselves.

It was over. L had won. He'd won, and he had no idea. He was probably running things over a million times in that clever head of his, trying to figure out how his deductions had been so wrong – trying to figure out how _Light_ had been killed by _Kira_.

" _I feel as though you're the first friend I have ever had._ "

Light wondered how long it would take him to figure out the real truth. Misa would keep writing names until someone told her about his death, at least, but there was no telling what would happen after that.

It wouldn't be too long.

 _Gone…_

Everything he'd worked for…

His new world…

Damn Rem. Damn Misa. Damn L.

Damn them all.

* * *

This didn't make sense. He'd been so sure that he was just missing a key piece of evidence – that Light _was_ Kira. Every time Light had been proved innocent it had seemed too convenient. Suspicions would rise, Light would seem guilty, and then some miraculous event would happen to acquit him of guilt. Time after time… and now it had happened again. Only this time was different. This time was anything but convenient for Light.

In a moment the room had gone from a bickering match to dead silence. It was a coincidence, really, that L had heard Light's gasp of pain at all. There had been the slightest pause in the argument. A pause the had been broken early by that unexpected intake of breath.

"Light?" Matsuda – being the closest to Light – spoke first.

The rest of the task force snapped their heads around at the same time L swiveled in his chair.

Agony. Shock.

They were not emotions Light Yagami wore often or well.

And then he collapsed, his head kept from smashing into the floor only by Matsuda's shaky grip as he latched onto Light's shoulders and sank with him to the ground. "Light? What's wrong? Oh, no…"

"Light!" Soichiro tore over to Light's side.

L found himself not far behind, shoving out of his chair and sliding into a crouch as he reached the small group that was forming around Light.

This. Could. Not. Be.

"Light, no! Look at me, son!"

Soichiro's tone made Matsuda wince, tears welling in his eyes, but all L could do was stare at Light's rigid form.

How could his deductions have been so off? Was it still possible that Light was Kira and the second Kira had decided to get rid of him? No… That couldn't be it – the second Kira had worshiped the first one. If Misa really was the second Kira, she'd never have harmed Light.

There remained but two conclusions. The Shinigami – who was absent at the moment – had done this, or… or Light truly wasn't Kira.

L tried to ignore Soichiro's pleas as they filled the air with constant noise.

In those last moments, L saw Light's shock give way to blazing rage before his face slacked, that rigidness of his body draining away to leave him limp in Matsuda's arms.

Light's blank eyes stared at him, seeming to accuse L from beyond death itself.

Soichiro's yelling increased as he dragged Light from Matsuda and into his own arms, clutching his son's body to his chest as he swore justice upon Kira.

"Mr. Yagami…" L kept his voice low, just loud enough to be heard given all the yelling.

Soichiro's rage shifted, turning to L. "What is it, Ryuzaki? Another baseless accusation for how my son still might be Kira? Is _this_ enough evidence to prove his innocence to you, or would you like to set up another test?"

"Chief!" Matsuda protested, tear tracks streaked over the horror on his face.

"It's all right, Matsuda," L said calmly. If he had been wrong this whole time, Mr. Yagami had every right to be angry. "No, Mr. Yagami, that was not my intention."

"Then _what?_ " Soichiro snapped.

L inched closer, still in a crouch. When Soichiro didn't move away, L reached out with one hand, delicately trailing his fingers across Light's eyes to close them.

The rage within Soichiro gaze flickered, then died out entirely as he lowered his head to Light's shoulder and started wordlessly sobbing.

L may not have ever been particularly respectful of society's established rules, but even he knew when to leave those in pain be. He would not push them all for further investigation tonight – that task would fall to him.

 _I feel as though you're the first friend I have ever had._

He _would_ get to the bottom of these detestable murders.

* * *

L blinked slowly, looking up from the bridge of twizlers he'd strung between the two towers of dice on his desk as a file landed dangerously close to toppling the entire structure.

"Monthly report on that crazy model girl." Mello plopped back into the other chair at the desk. "You're really still keeping an eye on her?"

"Yes," L said simply, laying down the last twizler from the package before he reached for the file.

"What for?" Mello reached for a chocolate bar on the desk, tearing the wrapper with his teeth. "You solved the Kira case years ago."

L chewed on his thumb lightly as he opened the file with his other hand. "Some aspects still remain a puzzle to me."

"Yeah, but you know who did it." Mello bit off a chunk of chocolate with a crunch. "Pretty obvious since the killing stopped right after Yagami died and never started up again. Even if Amane was the second Kira she's confined. Why keep her under such close watch?"

Mello was right in that regard. While L had never directly been able to confirm that Misa was the second Kira, it hardly mattered since she'd been admitted to a mental institution soon after Light's death and put under suicide watch until some years after. In all those years, she hadn't seemed to make any effort to get out.

Still. The case continued to plague him, even now. His most probable theory was that the Shinigami, Rem, had killed Light, but they still didn't tell him why.

"Amane was the second Kira, that much is clear." Near spoke up from his position on the floor a few feet away from them where he was setting up a house of cards. "And if I'm not mistaken, L still keeps tabs on all of the task force members from the Kira case as well."

Mello's right eye gave an irritated twitch, and he plucked one of the dice of the tower on the desk and threw it at Near, hitting the exact card that would make the house topple most effectively. "Yeah? And what makes you so sure?"

L sighed inwardly. Mello's attitude towards Near had improved over the years, but he still seemed to enjoy trying to get under the boy's skin.

Near swept the toppled cards to the side and started over without a word about it. "The deaths didn't immediately stop after Light Yagami was killed – they stopped after Amane heard of his death. Furthermore, the reports say she still talks to herself regularly as though someone is with her."

Mello tapped his chocolate bar against his teeth. "You think she's still got a shinigami following her?"

"There's a high probability," L agreed, having come to the same conclusion years back.

Mello waved his chocolate bar around. "Well, sucks to be that Shinigami. I'd rather be offed by a death note myself than have to follow a depressed serial killer around a crazy house."

"Yes, I rather say Miss Amane has lost the light that was her charm…" L closed the file. Nothing of note this month, as he'd suspected.

Mellp groaned loudly. "That was bad, L. That was _really_ bad."

The entire Kira case was what was _really bad_ , L thought. In the end, he'd won, but it didn't feel like it. No… that wasn't quite right. It was a victory, certainly, but just a shell of one – a _hollow_ victory. Light's death had been quick. Kira hadn't suffered for his crimes, or repented. He'd barely had time to process his loss. Yes, in the end it was those closest to Light who suffered the most…

* * *

L snapped the cookie he'd been eating in half when Watari passed along the news. Now he stared from a distance at the group of people surrounding the fresh grave at the cemetery and contemplated whether or not Soichiro would have actually wanted to be buried next to his son. Though, L supposed it didn't truly matter. Funerals were for the living. The dead would never know the conditions of their final resting place.

It was a cruel irony that Soichiro had died of another heart attack, but given L's past experiences with the man, L was mildly surprised he'd lasted as long as he did. It was likely he'd only made it so long because he was trying to stay strong for his wife and daughter. Things looked as though the task force had partially taken up that mantle now.

Aizawa and Mogi were standing on both sides of Mrs. Yagami, silently supporting her as she clearly tried to suppress tears. Matsuda, on the other hand, appeared to be having his rib cage cracked as Sayu clung to him and sobbed openly into the front of his suit.

Ever the awkward man out, though he looked more serious and ragged since L had last seen him in person.

"Why do you bother to keep watching them all?" Near questioned from where he was sitting on a nearby bench, fiddling with toy car. It was rare for him to leave headquarters, so L knew he must have had a reason for wanting to come.

L glanced over his shoulder. "I'm surprised you haven't already figured that out, Near. As the only detectives apart from you and Mello who have seen my face, they're still valuable contacts."

Near looked up from his toy, his expression unbelieving. "Of course, that was my first conclusion, but it proved to be an unsatisfactory answer once I realized that you hadn't spoken to any of them since the Kira case."

"Perhaps I'm merely waiting for the right case."

"We had the right case." Near spoke without hesitation, clearly confident in his deduction. "Last year, that Kira worshiping mob of juvenile delinquents killed six prominent anti-Kira reporters before we were able to track them all down. We could have used some trusted field workers."

"We had some," L reminded.

Near's lips twitched upwards just a hair. "Yes… Wedy and Aiber – two criminals themselves."

"I will use a thief to catch a murderer any day."

"Yet you could have used police officers to catch those murderers."

"I don't recall you or Mello raising protests at the time."

"I have no protests." Near absently spun on of the wheels on his car. "I'm merely stating the observations that lead me to my deduction."

"And what deduction might that be?" He still enjoyed testing Near and Mello when he could, and he was curious about how well they read him now that they were older.

"You had no intentions of calling on them to aid in any investigations." Near tapped the wheel, stopping it. "So, my original question still stands – why do you continue to observe them?"

L smiled softly, an action Near wouldn't be able to see from his position. "You're quite brilliant, Near, but you still have much to learn."

Near tilted his head, taking that statement as he reached up to twirl a few stands of his hair around one finger. "Ah. I see… Sentiment. But is it their sentiment leading you to believe they would be too emotional for a case connected to Kira, or is it your own sentiment that's led you to keep an eye on them at all?"

L didn't answer, looking back at the funeral gathering to find himself locking eyes with Matsuda.

So he'd finally been spotted.

Matsuda didn't even blink as he reached over to tap Aizawa's arm repeatedly. With the prompting, it didn't take long for Aizawa to spot him either.

All he gave them was a nod before he turned away.

"Best we be going, Near."

* * *

 **One of my only disappointments about the series (though I totally understand it) is that we never get to see the alphabet squad interact. They're all so brilliant in their own ways. It would have been... (Ryuk voice) so INterESTing.**


End file.
